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Adopting a Cloud Mindset – Unleashing Enterprise Cloud Adoption

(This post was originally written as a contribute piece for Nimsoft’s Modern IT Blog, but I thought it would fit well here too – Enjoy)

Much has been written here, and in many blogs, about Cloud Adoption. However, most of this has focused on the tangible and critical pieces like technical architecture and operational considerations. This can’t be minimized in the least. However, in my work with both vendors and end customers, I’ve identified what is another critical success factor across all organizations, and that is adopting a Cloud Mindset. And while mindset may seem “softer” than the other issues, if we don’t shift our mindset, we will continue to cling to ideas and assumptions that served us well in the past, but can get in the way of our future success.

The OPF™ Mindset Framework:

I’ve developed a model to both understand and manage mindset transitions. In the OPF framework, Mindset is composed of 3 components; orientation, perspective, and focus. Each of these has a very specific definition:

1. Orientation – My relationship and adjustment to the environment that I am in

2. Perspective – My way of regarding/judging and interpreting facts

3. Focus – Where I choose to concentrate my attention

In order to change, to bridge from one mindset to the next, it is often helpful to explicitly define, discuss and agree on an organization Mindset.

Let’s now apply this framework to the three transitions in question, ISV to SaaS, Service Provider to Cloud Service Provider, and Enterprise IT To a Cloud First Organization.

The SaaS Mindset

As I blogged earlier, ISV and new SaaS providers need to change their Mindset:

Orientation: from Product to Service

Perspective: from Spikey to Continuous

Focus: from Transaction to Relationship

Without these changes, the incentive to drive the organizational requirements for success and the framework to make strategic choices will be flawed. I’ve seen many cases where ISVs have not succeeded with the transition to SaaS, not because of technical barriers, but because they failed to change mindset and therefore made poor organizational, resource and strategic choices.

The Cloud Service Provider Mindset

Service Providers, of course are in the business of selling services, not products, so they have a different challenge in transitioning. They must become more agile, like the technology they support. They must accept that they win not only by expanding their service catalog, but by making it more “open” to other cloud providers, and adding value in layers above their traditional service catalogs. Applying the OPF framework to this transition, we can summarize this transition like this:

Orientation: from closed and control to open value add

Perspective: from customer value from me to customer value through ecosystem leverage

Focus: from Service expansion to Service agility

The more a service provider opens up and expands its catalog, business practices and value add to the Cloud ecosystem, the more opportunity opens and barriers to winning the Cloud melt away.

The Enterprise IT To a Cloud First Organization Mindset

Traditionally, IT has been the provider of services to the Enterprise. And while this is the role that they will continue to play, it is being transformed daily. First of all, with layers from IaaS to PaaS to SaaS being provided to IT, they must understand that they are no longer a buyer of services, but have in many cases become the consumer of these services. They must consume, add value and broker these services to their internal and external customers across web, mobile and other channels. They must move beyond exploring the cloud and drive to strategies that exploit it. In short, they are the beneficiaries of the work being done by ISVs and Cloud providers, but only if they learn to consume, exploit and effectively broker new and innovative services. In short, their mindset must shift like this:

Orientation: from buyer to consumer

Perspective: from exploration to exploitation

Focus: Service delivery to service brokering

As we see, Cloud Adoption changes the role and mindset across the IT service delivery value chain. Has you organization changed or is it clinging to an old mindset? By explicitly thinking, discussing and agreeing on an organization’s mindset, it’s Orientation, Perspective and Focus, you can change the speed and effectiveness of your cloud adoption and success. Happy Bridging…

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Frank Bennett | Mar 19, 2013

Ken like this and curious to know how you see the buyer side OPF perspective?

Ken as you write in your article the Enterprise IT mindset will shift and my question was directed to get to understand who will address that shift or transformation? Vendors? CIO? CEO calling in their preferred consultants?

The buyer side perspective is potentially riddled with conflicting agendas depending on who is involved. Reaching a consensus on a cloud mindset is in my experience no easy task.

Ahh. I think the smart CIO will figure out they need to lead this, else they will become continually marginalized. The other path is that LOB owners adopt broadly and “force IT” to embrace…But I spend most of my time on the vendor side, so I am interested in what’s your experience Frank?

So the CIO leads and with the short tenure of many CIOs they need to make an impact quickly. One approach is to look to the cloud and then the CIO needs to locate a partner that will deliver on his / her bet”. Ken it is this area that is or should be in focus for vendors providing the insight and confidence of a detailed plan to deliver against the underlying business plan. This is the translation of ‘why are we having a conversation about the cloud?’ Into ‘this is why we are having a conversation about the cloud’. I see a big need for vendors to equip their teams to be engaged in this conversation. One complexity particularly among the enterprise customer group is the ‘opportunity window’ to take a look at this – where expiring licensing agreements meet end of life infrastructure investment that provide the ‘compelling event’ scenario to demonstrate the economic value of the business case. Given the lead time on these cloud projects and to get the timing right for the compelling event scenarios you need to outlook 12 – 24 months. Challenging for vendors who chase Q targets and perhaps a reason why some (not all) shy away from that conversation. Any evidence to support this view? Oracle just tanked on their numbers citing the cloud as one reason and blaming sales. This is not a capacity issue (Oracle have been hiring) something else is going on – perhaps the style of conversation between vendor and customer? That is what drew me to your position on mindset. Frank